A Mixed Bag Life Update XIV
It’s been about three months since the last life update, so here it is, buckle up, brace for impact. The biggest change is our health insurance situation, Erin has finally been approved for “Working Healthy“, which is Medicaid healthcare insurance. Erin is eligible as she is determined to be disabled, however, she works about 15 hours a week, hence the Working Healthy moniker. This change will save us $658 monthly, which we currently pay for Blue Cross, Blue Shield through the Healthcare Marketplace.
The downside is that the kids will not have medical insurance moving forward, Conner, he can get his own insurance, he is 19 years old now, and can probably get a good subsidy from the ACA as his income is super low at this time. Alya can hopefully get Medicaid through Erin’s disability determination. I have my own medical insurance through my employer, it’s from Aetna, and not worth shit, it covers next to nothing, with a high deductible, but I pay a few dollars a paycheck for it, so it’s a case of something is better than nothing. Sadly, I cannot add the kids to my insurance as adding them adds several hundred dollars per paycheck, and again, the insurance is terrible, and we need that money to live.
My concern with this switch is can Erin find doctors who take Medicaid? We already know that her therapist and pain management doctors do not take Medicaid, the latter is very problematic as Erin has severe rheumatoid arthritis and heavily relies on narcotics to control her pain. Her current pain management doctor is awesome, he has prescribed 2 months’ worth of narcotics to get her through to, hopefully, finding a new pain management doctor who takes Medicaid, if there is one to find, locally.
A related subject is the potential of Erin losing her SSDI disability benefit for six months, starting December 2023, that’s a loss of $1,543 per month, which would cripple us financially, even with the saving of $658 monthly. Social Security claims that we were not eligible for the first six months of payment, as Erin needed to be eligible for six months before they started paying the benefit. But we have documentation sent from Social Security, to say she had served that six months of eligibility before they paid her a cent. We have appealed the decision, and are waiting for a response about the appeal.
From what I have read, it seems that Social Security has overpaid as much as $20bn in benefits, and wants it back within 30 days, in our case, that’s $8,762, which is low compared to what some have to pay back, one woman has to pay back over $60k. What the fuck is the Social Security Administration been smoking, if you qualify for disability benefits, you are not putting the benefits received into a savings account for a rainy day, we spend every damn cent of it just to make it from month to month, read more.
It’s amazing to me how the United States government can always find money for war, but when it comes to helping out American citizens, it’s always “How are you going to pay for that?”, but I digress.
I have been having my own health challenges, I’ve had to return to having injections in my eyes to help save what vision I have remaining, which, Aetna, my insurance provider does not pay a cent for, pushing me further into medical debt. This came about because like the last time, I woke up to a blurry world, making work very tough, and driving was not an option. And now because of this ongoing issue, my ability to drive is under threat, and I have to submit an annual form from my eye doctor, which is fine, but after the issues with renewing my driver’s license, renewing in October 2022, January 2023 and will again need to renew in January 2024, is very frustrating. This is due to a delay in USCIS renewing my green card, sending out two 1 year extensions, meaning that the DMV could not issue me with a standard six-year license because my legal residence in the United States is not guaranteed beyond the extension date.
I did finally receive my new green card, so hopefully, in January, I can get a regular six-year license, and just have to send the vision form to the DMV once a year. But, knowing my luck, I will continue to have to pay the full fee for a six-year license, for a 1 year license. I will have paid for 18 years of driver’s licenses in January, in just 15 months; there has to be a better system than this crap for green card holders.
Erin, Conner, and I all were infected with COVID-19, seemingly from the movie theater when we went to see Gran Turismo, which was fun, NOT, being laid up for a whole week, read more.
And right now I have a nasty spider bite on my face, and the US healthcare system failed me again. I called my doctor’s office, requesting an urgent appointment, and the nearest appointment was a month away, and they would not prescribe me any antibiotics without an appointment. They suggested Urgent Care as an option, but that’s not a real option, due to the copay cost, $250 just to be seen, and the ER is definitely not an option, the last time I had a spider bite, that 15-minute visit cost $2,774, luckily as I received the bite while taking real estate photos for my employer, workers compensation covered it.
So, I am left with having to just deal with it, and I think my body is fighting off the infection from the spider bite, but it was quite painful for the first four days, as my face swelled up, on my left cheek towards my eye. It’s still swollen, but the hardness of the swelling is softening up and the pain is gone, so hopefully this is a good sign that my body is fighting off the infection of its own accord.
Finally, Erin and I have put our foot down on the local kids coming into our house to play with Alya. I’m not going to mention any names, but there is one girl who whenever she comes into our home, especially staying overnight, there is some problem. This last time, I allowed Alya to have her friends stay over on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday nights, the Wednesday and Thursday nights, there was not a big issue, but on Friday, I allowed the troublesome child to stay with her friend, who I did not really know. They treated Alya really badly, were throwing stuff at our cats, because Imzadi is “scary”, and finally deliberately broke two staplers, one of which did not belong to us, so we had to pay to replace it, we found staples in lots of our belongings, including the sofa, and they destroyed our wicker vegetable basket.
I should have put a stop to this months ago, but because Alya has terrible anxiety about not having anyone to play with, I gave them another chance. I should have stopped it for the simple reason that this girl, an African American child, is all too quick to play the race card, I’ve overheard her calling me a racist personally and had it confirmed by other people. If I am a racist, I am doing a terrible job of being one, being married to an African American, with two mixed-race children. Bottom line, no one comes into our house, and I do not want Alya playing with our neighbors’ kids, with friends like that, who needs enemies.